Gettin’ Smashed in Colfax

2,600 attend fifth annual demolition derby

James Lewis, a native of Colfax, has his wife’s bra size mounted on the top of his car: 38DD.

This car won’t be seen on the road though. Instead the car, and about 2,600 people, got smashed in Colfax on Saturday night at the fifth annual Gettin’ Smashed in Colfax event.

“I’m always excited to win the derby in Colfax,” Lewis said.

Lewis, who won the class that included vans and trucks, only spent $100 on the 1992 Dodge Caravan and bought it from William’s Auto Service.

“I do very little, that way I don’t have a lot of expense in it and if I do win, it’s just a bonus for me,” Lewis said.

This year’s derby should have been the sixth, but floods in 2010 made the fairgrounds too wet for the mud spraying event. Brad Magg, one of the event’s founders, said they never had more than 2,000 people in attendance until this year.

Brad, his brother Zach and his friends started the event in 2008 expecting only a few hundred people to show up. Brad said people started flowing in so they couldn’t accept the money fast enough.

“We had one person taking money at the gate,” Brad said. “That year, we estimate we had about 2,000 people there.”

This year, Brad said 20 people asked for their money back because they couldn’t see from their seats. Next year, he hopes to resolve that problem by expanding the seats. Brad also said people came from as far as Georgia to witness the smashing.

The irony is, Brad has never driven a derby car. He said this is a fact that the members of the committee like to remind him of.

“They always joke that they could sell more tickets if I drove one of the cars,” Brad said. “Somebody’s gonna have to raise some serious money for Mainstreet before I drive one of those cars.”

Brad said it took almost 80 volunteers to get the event organized. All of the proceeds for the event go to Main Street Colfax.

The trick to winning a derby is all in the way the car is driven, according to Lewis.